“Carpe diem”: Horace's original Latin
Almost everyone knows carpe diem, and few have seen the sentence it comes from. Horace wrote it to a woman called Leuconoe in a short poem published in 23 BC, telling her to stop asking fortune-tellers about the future. This passage also has lines from another of his odes, set in deep winter.
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The text and translation
Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus silvae laborantes, geluque flumina constiterint acuto.
Do you see how deep with snow stands Soracte, and the laboring woods no longer sustain the burden, and the rivers stand frozen with sharp frost?
Word by word
- Vides
- thou seest
- ut
- how
- alta
- deep
- stet
- stands
- nive
- with snow
- candidum
- shining white
- Soracte
- Mount Soracte
- nec
- and not
- iam
- now, any longer
- sustineant
- sustain, bear
- onus
- burden
- silvae
- woods, forests
- laborantes
- struggling, labouring
- geluque
- and with frost
- flumina
- rivers
- constiterint
- have stood still
- acuto
- sharp, biting
Dissolve frigus ligna super foco large reponens atque benignius deprome quadrimum Sabina, o Thaliarche, merum diota.
Dispel the cold by piling logs generously on the hearth, and bring forth more lavishly four-year-old unmixed wine from the Sabine jar, O Thaliarchus.
Word by word
- Dissolve
- dispel, melt away
- frigus
- cold
- ligna
- firewood, logs
- super
- upon
- foco
- hearth
- large
- generously, abundantly
- reponens
- laying, piling
- atque
- and
- benignius
- more lavishly
- deprome
- draw forth
- quadrimum
- four-year-old
- Sabina
- Sabine
- o
- O
- Thaliarche
- Thaliarchus
- merum
- pure wine
- diota
- from the two-handled jar
Quid sit futurum cras fuge quaerere, et quem fors dierum cumque dabit lucro appone.
Flee from asking what tomorrow will bring, and count as profit whatever day fortune will give.
Word by word
- Quid
- what
- sit
- is, may be
- futurum
- about to be
- cras
- tomorrow
- fuge
- flee, avoid
- quaerere
- to ask, seek
- et
- and
- quem
- whatever
- fors
- fortune, chance
- dierum
- of days
- cumque
- so-ever
- dabit
- shall give
- lucro
- to profit
- appone
- reckon, set down
Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi finem di dederint, Leuconoe: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
Do not inquire—it is forbidden to know—what end the gods have given to me or to thee, Leuconoe: seize the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.
Word by word
- Tu
- thou
- ne
- do not
- quaesieris
- inquire
- scire
- to know
- nefas
- forbidden, impiety
- quem
- what
- mihi
- to me
- quem
- what
- tibi
- to thee
- finem
- end
- di
- the gods
- dederint
- have given
- Leuconoe
- Leuconoe
- carpe
- pluck, seize
- diem
- the day
- quam
- as
- minimum
- least
- credula
- trusting
- postero
- in the next day, tomorrow
What to notice
- carpe diem is usually translated “seize the day”, but carpe really means “pluck” or “pick”, as you would pick fruit. It is gentler than the slogan.
- quam minimum credula postero means “trusting as little as possible in tomorrow”. The famous phrase is only half of the thought, and this is the other half.
- Tu ne quaesieris means “do not ask”. Ne with this verb form is a formal, polite way of telling someone not to do something.
- Quid sit futurum cras means “what tomorrow will bring”, from the winter ode. The same idea turns up in both poems: enjoy what's here.
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Sources
Horace, Carmina 1.9, 1.11; English translation by Claude (AI)
Text licence: Public domain.
Language pack licence: Texts public domain; annotation and translations CC BY-SA 4.0.
Texts: Latin Wikisource (public domain; Catullus ed. Merrill, with long-vowel marks; the Vulgate passages in the Clementine text). English: Douay-Rheims (public domain) for the Vulgate passages; other sentence translations and all tagging by Claude (AI), checked against Wiktionary; not yet reviewed by a person.
The introduction and notes on this page were written by Claude (AI). Word glosses are AI-assisted, and so is the English unless the source above names another translator.